BEFORE: Great, a nice, easy short movie tonight. I have to work the next three days straight, so a shorter film gets me to bed earlier so I can wake up early Saturday morning and work a double shift. Then one more on Sunday and a shorter shift Monday before I can take another break. Next week's going to be the REALLY tough schedule, so I may have already watched a few of the movies, which is bound to help me stay current - so all I have to do for a couple upcoming films is just post a review.
Selma Blair carries over from "The Fog".
THE PLOT: A teenage girl and her younger brother must survive a wild 24 hours during which a mass hysteria of unknown origin causes parents to turn violently on their own kids.
AFTER: What can I say about a film that has no beginning and also no end? We're all dropped right into the middle of the story, as a typical American suburban town has already been affected by this - whatever it is - that makes parents want to kill their kids, and only their kids. The news outlets across the country are still trying to put the pieces together, and nobody knows if this urge is caused by an airborne virus, or the static that seems to have popped up on everyone's TV set and computer monitor and hospital vital signs screen. So how it started, what exactly caused it, and how long it might last are all open questions, sure it's early in the process but I would hope that the film might be interested in providing at least SOME further details. Nope.
Bear in mind, this film was released two years before COVID hit, so you can't really say this is a pandemic film, it's not a zombie film, it's kind of it's own thing, but we can't really place it in any category for sure unless we learn more about WHAT is happening and WHY. Or at least HOW. The various pundits and scientists we do see theorize that something has flipped a switch inside all parents' heads, the urge that parents naturally have to protect their young, to sacrifice themselves for their children, got chemically turned around somehow, to the point where all people could now think about is doing the opposite, killing their kids instead.
I know, relatable, right? What parent hasn't wanted to kill their teenager or pre-teen at some point? What teenager hasn't fantasized about killing their parents, when they're being too bossy or too protective or not protective enough or just because it's Thursday? But here the parents are actually DOING it, killing their kids, and then they feel some kind of satisfaction or relief and they can get on with their lives? But if this is allowed to happen, it could mean the end of the human race because, as you know, I believe that children are our future. And even if they manage to kill the ones they have, if they go on to have more kids, are they going to want to kill them too? Will the urge to procreate, followed by the urge to terminate, just become part of some never-ending cycle?
How long is this urge going to last? Will it wear off or die out at some point? I guess nobody knows. So as I said before, there's no real ending here, once Carly and Joshua get their parents all tied up, will they have to keep them imprisoned indefinitely? Will science come up with a cure or is this just how parent-child relationships will be, going forward? The movie can't be bothered to tell us, it just stops abruptly, mid-sentence, in a way that kind of looks like they just ran out of film and couldn't shoot any more. Sure, I understand that not every problem can be solved, and this isn't an hour-long procedural where the researchers come up with the cure when there's five minutes left in the show, but, still, some resolution might have been nice.
The quote on the movie's poster describes it as "a twisted remake of "Home Alone" on bath salts" but that doesn't really cover it, because "Home Alone" was at least amusing. Slapstick comedy only works when people don't get hurt or killed, and that's definitely a factor here. A long scene of parents picking their kids up after school because they want to kill them just hits different, you know? However, I can see that once they do that, then they're free, they'll never have to wait in their car for hours to pick them up from school again. Yeah, I kind of get it, they just want their lives back. Still, this is an intriguing starting point for a story that needed just a bit more follow-through.
Directed by Brian Taylor (director of "Crank" and "Crank: High Voltage")
Also starring Nicolas Cage (last seen in "Brats"), Anne Winters (last seen in "Night School"), Zackary Arthur (last seen in "The 5th Wave"), Robert T. Cunningham, Olivia Crocicchia (last seen in "Men, Women & Children"), Lance Henriksen (last seen in "Jennifer's Body"), Marilyn Dodds Frank (last seen in "Slice"), Samantha Lemole (last seen in "Legally Blonde"), Joseph D. Reitman (last seen in "Crank: High Voltage"), Rachel Melvin (last seen in "Dumb and Dumber To"), Bobby Richards, Sharon Gee (last seen in "Black Adam"), Edwin Lee Gibson (last seen in "Marshall"), Brionne Davis, Adin Steckler (last seen in "Allegiant"), Cassidy Slaughter-Mason, Jennifer Roopenian, Sheri Carbone, George Griffith, Angela Weathers, Christine Dye (last seen in "First Kill"), Lorena Diaz, Rob Gough (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Lila Tellone, Shannon Cogan (last seen in "Breaking News in Yuba County"), Angie Fenton, Louis Robert Thompson, Michael Yurchak (last seen in "Quasi"),
with cameos from Grant Morrison (last seen in "Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope"), Mehmet Oz, Bokeem Woodbine (last seen in "Queen & Slim")
RATING: 4 out of 10 whacks from a meat tenderizer
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